The first music-focused Open Session of the FAMLAB (Film, Archive and Music Lab), which is part of the British Council in Vietnam’s on-going project Heritage of Future Past, will be held at The Observatory in District 1, HCMC on November 1.

Film lecturer and scriptwriter Vu Anh Duong speaks at British Council Vietnam's FAMLAB Open Session on humor in cinema on September 25. The first Open Session focusing on music will be held at The Observatory in District 1 early next month

FAMLAB Open Session is a series of curated events showcasing contemporary explorations into Vietnamese music and film lineages. The program has so far covered themes as varied as film restoration/archiving, humor throughout cinema history, and the non-fictional visual representation of traditional music genres.

For the first music-focused Open Session, there will be two performances that track, trace, remember, and reimagine an inter-temporal cross-section of the country’s vast sonic traditions.

Following the recent release of Saigon Supersound’s second volume, record collector/producer Jan Hagenkoetter will be presenting a DJ set of classics across 1960s/1970s of Vietnamese popular music. Next to this, the evening’s live-music portion takes the form of the premiere of a sound-art piece written by emerging composers Nhung Nguyen (also known as Sound Awakener) and Zach Schreier for electronics, percussions, traditional instruments and field recordings, to be performed by an ensemble group.

Jan Hagenkoetter is a music-lover and DJ. He is the mind behind the internationally renowned music publishing company and record label INFRACom!, the “jazznotjazz” club brand/series and the festival of the same name in Frankfurt, as well as the web-based digital music promotion system “Hear the Music”.

Pons is a sound-art piece composed by emerging Vietnam-based sonic experimentalists Nhung Nguyen and Zach Schreier. An explosion of styles characteristic of the composers’ artistic practices across a range of left-field pursuits, the work is inspired by the gong music of the Vietnamese Central Highlands ethnic groups with a strong emphasis on the rhythmic strengths associated with those traditions.

Written for electronics, percussions, traditional instruments and field recordings – to be performed by an ensemble group while also incorporating audience participation towards the kind of communal atmosphere often found in Central Highlands village gatherings – the piece positions itself alongside and yet quite apart from other interpretations of traditional Vietnamese music via contemporary pathways.

Nhung Nguyen is a Vietnamese sound artist currently based in Hanoi, experimenting across a range of aesthetics and expressions – ambient drone, electro-acoustics, noise music, musique concrète and others. Since 2014, Nhung has been making works under the moniker Sound Awakener and using her real name for the more cinematic, piano-driven projects.

Zach Schreier has been active in the HCMC arts and music scene since 2017, collaborating with artists of various mediums on duties as varied as sound design, production, engineering, synthesizers, string instruments, drums, or traditional mouth organs and percussions.